Daily Lobo 05/01/2023

Daily l obo

UNM partners with NOVA to support sexual assault victims EDITORIAL: On the Cherry Reel review

By Annya Loya @annyaloya

The National Organization for Victim Assistance is preparing to launch the Youth Advocacy Corps pilot program in partnership with five colleges, including the University of New Mexico.

The Youth Advocacy Corps program intends to aid marginalized youth in victim advocacy by providing student fellows with training, mentorship and a paid field placement in a local victim service organization, according to NOVA.

On Monday, April 24, the University hosted a town hall where

the program was introduced and panelists shared their experiences as sexual violence survivors. Abrianna Morales, a panelist and UNM student, is a NOVA youth program manager and looks forward to the impact the upcoming program will have.

“The great thing about this program is it gives people an entrance or an opportunity to enter victim advocacy,” Morales said. “A lot of times victim advocates spill into the field without having intended to be a victim (advocate). It’s fascinating to fall into.”

The activities for the three-year pilot include: assessing the needs within the victim services field, de-

UNM visiting artist uplifts BIPOC, queer stories

By Detroit Kallunki @DailyLobo

Each spring the painting and drawing department hosts an “Open Studio” event where the public can enter the campus studio and observe the work that a UNM visiting artist has created over the spring semester, according to Amanda Curreri, an associate professor in the UNM department of fine arts.

This visiting artist program began six years ago, Curreri said, and this year’s artist is Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo.

“My work is rooted in storytelling and telling stories about survival — primarily of black, brown, Indigenous, queer, trans, gender-nonconforming and two-spirit folks. It’s rooted in how we amplify and tell stories of marginalized bodies in different ways,” Branfman-Verissimo said.

The artist selection is made based on a number of factors and is carefully decided each year, Curreri said.

“It’s a mix of people. You can imag-

ine being really excited to do something like this. It’s beautifully funded. You get a house, you get a studio, you don’t teach that much, you get to really focus on your research, but people have to be available for three months. The selection process often involves that challenge,” Curreri said.

This year’s Open Studio was held on Friday, April 28 in the Art Annex. Branfman-Verissimo hosted the event. Their most frequent medium is print-making. They said they strive to create art as a way to amplify the stories of traditionally marginalized people.

Having a practicing artist on campus is advantageous for art students, who have the opportunity to form lasting relationships with visiting artists, Curreri said.

“All of us are artists and teachers, but having someone solely focused on their research and creative process is really different,” Curreri said.

Branfman-Verissimo said their time with the UNM art department has opened new ideas for their see Artist page 3

Inside this Lobo

KEY: UNM graduate inspires new photographers, Artwork is far from cold-blooded (pg. 2)

BULGER: Baseball: Lobos sweep series with a walk-off (pg. 4)

KEY: Spirit Squad chooses lucky Lobos to cheer for University (pg. 4)

veloping, launching and evaluating a pilot program shaped by the marginalized community survivors, and establishing a national model.

The criteria for students selected to be brought into the program is still in development, but it’s intended to launch in spring 2023 and run until summer 2025, Morales said.

“The goal is to ensure that advocates represent the communities that they come from and that,victims feel represented by service providers who look like (they) had similar experiences (and) understand victimization … we selected institutions that are minority-serving,” Morales said.

see Partners page 3

By the Daily Lobo Editorial Board

Recently, the Daily Lobo ran an unjustly harsh review of the Cherry Reel Film Festival. Implicit bias was shown in the review, and while not intentional, ultimately the majority of the films we labeled as “disappointments” were made by students of color. This is meant to serve as an explanation of what happened, why it was wrong and how we are working to prevent this from happening again.

The film industry is a white-dominated field. In 2019, only 14.4% of the directors of theatrical films were peo-

ple of color and 91% of studio heads were white, according to Variety. The University of New Mexico and the film and digital arts program are both minority-majority and Cherry Reel is predominantly run by white students.

The film industry at large already creates little space for filmmakers of color to share their stories due to institutionalized racism that allows white people to easily maintain power in the industry and outward racism that creates an unsafe environment for people of color.

The level of negative criticism the review directed at students of color contributed to exclusion and see Editorial page 3

Nizhoni Days Powwow celebrates 64th year of community-making

SCHULER: LETTER: Cherry Reel review and what it means to critique (pg. 5)

SERINO: LETTER: Concerning your piece on Cherry Reel (pg. 5)

SCHWARTZ: Nizhoni Days Powwow celebrates 64th year of communitymaking (pg. 7)

ROY: REVIEW: ‘Beau is Afraid’ of brevity (pg. 8)

PUKITE: UNM faculty, staff bring attention to lack of capacity in Legislature (pg. 10)

Mackenzie Schwartz / Daily Lobo / @Mackenzid5

A young man dances on the Powwow grounds at Nizhoni Days Powwow presented by UNM Kiva Club at Johnson Field on Sunday, April 30. (see page 7)

UNM graduate inspires new photographers Artwork is far from cold-blooded

By Addison Key @addisonkey11

University of New Mexico graduate student and photographer Emma Ressel spent her childhood in Bar Harbor, Maine searching for reptiles and amphibians.

Her dad, a biology professor, would create his own photos of the animals he taught about. Her childhood was filled with holding lizards and salamanders and staging them for her father’s photography. Ressel’s love for photography started with her trips into “the field” with her father but grew as she learned more about the process itself.

“In high school I took a workshop over the summer … where I learned how to shoot black-and-white film and be in the dark room. I really fell in love with the dark room. I was kind of obsessed after that,” Ressel said.

Ressel’s photography expanded into an interest in natural history museums, dioramas and taxidermy.

“A couple years ago, I started photographing the dioramas and trying to see what happened when I would photograph something that was already still, like posed in motion, but still I’m really interested in this uncanniness of taxidermy and what it tells us about how we relate to the natural world,” Ressel said.

Ressel has been working with the collections managers at the Museum of Southwest Biology to make still-life images of the specimens there.

“A lot of them are in jars or in drawers. And it’s been really cool

to learn what specimens we have at that museum and talk to biologists and learn more about animal preservation,” Ressel said.

She has created a fictional nature center in her studio office. Her walls are covered in homemade wallpaper of her still-life images and interactive quotes and buttons. She said that her intention is to play with the information presented in museums.

“I’m taking this science information that’s presented to the general public and rolling my eyes at it or trying to point out how it falls apart when it reaches us,” Ressel said.

Ressel studied photography at Bard College in upstate New York. She said that her senior thesis at Bard, a photo series of food photography inspired by Dutch still-life paintings, gave her more confidence to pursue a career in professional photography.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, she moved to Philadelphia and started commuting to New York to assist on photo shoots and eventually run her own. However, graduate school was always part of the plan.

In addition to studying photography, Ressel is teaching an introductory to photography class at UNM. Ethan Trujillo, a student majoring in business administration said Ressel’s class inspired him to continue taking photography classes. He said that Ressel’s teaching style helped him gain confidence in his work, specifically with a portrait assignment.

that idea and sort of personifying this inanimate, living thing. Her openness to that really helped me to build confidence in my ideas … I should be able to do what I like, even if it sounds odd and kind of weird,” Trujillo said.

Joel Miranda, a computer science major in the introduction to photography class, said that Ressel’s passion for her work shines through in her teaching.

“She’s super passionate about photography, and that really rubs off on all the students and you can feel the energy. When she’s teaching something, especially if it comes to her specific area, she gets super excited and that’s infectious,” Miranda said.

Ressel’s move from the East Coast to Albuquerque presented her with more opportunities to connect and learn about the environments she is depicting. Ressel said that UNM’s art and ecology program is unique in the way it applies environmental issues to art.

“People don’t think it’s weird to want to take photos of animals. There’s a lot of people who care about photography and I haven’t felt like I’ve had to convince anybody to care about what I care about,” Ressel said.

Final Exam Schedule for Spring 2022

Part of Ressel’s photography series on compost, is being published in this year’s issue of Conceptions Southwest. She said that she started the series when she moved to Albuquerque and has begun printing them.

and kind of like these tapestries,” Ressel said.

cess to having the confidence to keep pursuing photography.

“I took a bunch of portraits of trees and she was really open to

“I’ve been printing those images really large because I want the compost to feel really immersive

Ressel is still grappling with the idea of calling herself an artist — a title she thinks a lot of people struggle taking on — but she attributes some of her suc-

Please recognize that students take multiple exams and that many of these are offered at specific times in observance of the final exam schedule. If you do not wish to follow this exam schedule, it is important to provide students with a broad window of time for exam completion (12 hours or more) so that you are not creating an exam time conflict for them. Best practices for exams in remote contexts include providing students with a broad window of time for completion, practicing the exam taking conditions with the students, and providing a way for a student to communicate with the instructor if their internet connection fails during the exam.

NOTE: Exams by the faculty inclement weather, scheduling, weather projections and student's needs.

Addison Key is a freelance reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @addisonkey11

FINAL EXAM SCHEDULE

May 12-17, 2023

or

or

or

Use this listing to determine the final exam schedule for your class. Exams will take place in the rooms in which the individual classes have been meeting, unless otherwise announced Exams for lab times of a section may be given during the week preceding finals week or at the time period listed below during finals week.

Liliana Esparza / Daily Lobo / @DailyLobo

Emma Ressel, a photography graduate student at the University of New Mexico, in her office during an interview on April 28.

Partners from page 1

Kaylyn Ahn, another panelist and student at Northwestern University, said the program was “a breakthrough within the advocacy realm.”

“We (panelists) just talked about how important it was to us as survivors who hold multiple marginalized identities, like me being a queer woman of color

Editorial from page 1

racism that is prevalent in the field by not allowing Cherry Reel to be a positive platform for students to share their work.

This review was edited by an all-white component of the team, and our failure to discuss racism in the film industry when deciding how to approach this review is indicative of our biases and inherent racism as white people.

Our responsibility, as the independent voice of the University of New Mexico, is to think critically about every single article we publish — reviews and opinions included — and to have a diversity of lived experiences on our editorial board.

When setting out to write this review, we sought to critique student work as a way to treat students as real filmmakers, and their work with legitimacy. However, we did not hold ourselves as student journalists to a

Artist from page 1 work, including some of their ideas on storytelling.

“A lot of my inspiration shifted or expanded once I got to Albuquerque. Because of the location and the big sky, I’ve been thinking a lot about flight and how we tell our soaring and thriving stories as opposed to only telling the survival stories,” BranfmanVerissimo said.

The way marginalized people both endure struggles to survive and have beautiful stories of growth and success is something that Branfman-Verissimo believes is worth sharing. They believe there are many valuable ways in which stories can be shared with the world.

“My practice is rooted in printmaking and thinking a lot about the printed multiple as well as the power of the different ways of telling one’s story, orally or written,” Branfman-Verissimo said.

Individuality and expression are a large part of their work,

who was also low income and how important it was to have victim advocates that understood where we were coming from,” Ahn said.

Ahn helped draft House Bill 5441 for the Sex Offenses Article of the Code in the state of Illinois. It now states that no matter if you were voluntarily intoxicated or the

professional standard as well when working on the review.

The level of criticism in of our review crossed a line. While reviews do not always need to be positive, the extent of the negative criticism was not okay. As journalists, we should know word choice matters. We should have taken a second to think about the decision to label student films as “disappointing” and the impact it could have on someone. Especially when discussing student work, a negative review can directly affect those in our community at the start of their careers.

Many of the letters of the editors we received touched on how the nature of the criticism impacted students.

“Film students know that we are going into an industry that will try to pit us against each other. We know that studios will make everything feel like a competition, and that ‘losing’

Branfman-Verissimo said. Their inspiration also comes from activism for people facing societal maltreatment and the way that marginalization is combatted.

“I also get a lot of inspiration from protest strategies, thinking about different ways that we express and fight for our lives,”

Branfman-Verissimo said.

People within marginalized communities share their stories in different ways from those outside of their communities, BranfmanVerissimo said. Part of their goal as an artist is to come up with ways to share these stories and leave an audience with a greater understanding of the hardships that come with marginalization.

“I hope that folks take away some sort of understanding of our way of communicating,”

Branfman-Verissimo said.

The key to Branfman-Verissimo’s artwork is language and communication, which is what they hope

perpetrator gave you the intoxicating substance, your sexual assault case still counts as sexual assault.

Before the bill was passed into law in 2021, a legal loophole allowed that if the victim was voluntarily intoxicated, it could technically be argued in court that their sexual assault case wasn’t covered by the law. Ahn

feels like your work and everything you did for it is worthless. ‘Losing’ means becoming a starving artist or abandoning your work. Cherry Reel is not that,” Aiyana Shuler wrote.

Part of how we will strive to fulfill our responsibility to the community is to have an honest dialogue between the paper and the public. A newspaper is meant to hold institutions of power accountable, and the public is ultimately trusted with holding the media accountable, and we thank you for doing so.

In light of this review, we saw some of the highest engagement toward a story we published. While we regret the contents of this story, hearing the community’s thoughts, criticism and perspectives on what we write is something we want to encourage. Although we do not condone personal attacks towards staff members, we always accept letters

to express to their audience. Much of their work is a combination of words and symbols, like poetry in a visual form.

“I use a lot of language, both in letter forms and images that allude to stories. I’m always hoping that folks are taking some of the stories or ideas that are in the work and the idea that our communication preserves our histories, our memories, our thoughts, our demands,” Branfman-Verissimo said.

Branfman-Verissimo said their artwork is a significant part of them as a person and their relationship with the world around them. Sharing this artwork with others is a rewarding aspect of their creative process, and they believe “art gathers people.”

Detroit Kallunki is a freelance reporter with the Daily Lobo. They can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @DailyLobo.

said when she reported her case, the police officer told her to “not let it happen again and move on.”

“I think the biggest takeaway is that when we are talking about sexual violence or domestic violence, we need to highlight how the systems of the police, the assistance of victim advocates or even the hospital has shut out people of color

to the editor which can be emailed to editorincheif@dailylobo.com.

As you have proved, hearing the community’s response to what we write is integral to holding us accountable. To improve this dialogue, you can expect a bi-weekly editorial from the editor-in-chief. This is a means to bring more transparency from the Daily Lobo editorial board to the public by allowing insight into the views and opinions of the editorial voice of the paper.

Along with this, we are in the process of scheduling implicit bias and anti-racism training for next year’s editorial staff. While we also strive to have as diverse of an editorial board as possible, it is just as important to educate ourselves and think critically as white people.

Finally, our other shortcoming was the fact that we reviewed a piece that was directed by and starred two

and low-income people for so long,” Ahn said.

Annya Loya is the news editor at the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @annyaloya

people on staff. This was an obvious conflict of interest and something that never should have happened. It even further delegitimized our intent to take the film festival seriously. Discussions of conflicts of interest are something we continue to have on staff.

While the intent of our review was not to harm, the impact was far from it.The review will stay removed from our website, and we thank you for holding us accountable.

We strive to learn from this to improve the reporting at the Lobo so that we can do our job to serve and report on issues that matter to the community and not let something like this happen again.

This editorial is unsigned as it represents the views of the Daily Lobo editorial board

Summer is Right Around the Corner! E C -L OGICAL

New Opening Hours

Sun-Thu: 12pm - 9pm

Fri-Sat: 12pm - 9:30pm

1909 Bellamah Ave NW

Quirky Used Books & More is a locally owned bookstore offering a wide selection of fiction and nonfiction titles in a variety of genres and subject areas! Cookbooks! Mysteries! Biographies! History! Art books! Teacher materials! Kids books! And more! Our 3,800 square foot store opened in April 2022, fulfilling a long-time desire by the owner to open his own brick and mortar store. We carry greeting cards, collectibles, clothing and jewelry items, and a small selection of CD’s, LP’s, and DVD’s. Quirky Books also proudly displays and sells artwork by local artists! As part of our commitment to the Albuquerque community, we are proud to partner with local organizations to help them raise funds through book donation drives. We’re located just east of the Nob Hill area at 120 Jefferson NE. Stop by and get Quirky!!!

Tristan Huffman / Daily Lobo / @trinket1010 Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo and colleagues stand in front of their art at the Art Annex during Open Studio on Saturday, April 29.

Baseball: Lobos sweep series with a walk-off

By Thomas Bulger @ThomasBulger10

The Lobos swept the California State University, Fresno Bulldogs culminating in a Kyle Smith walkoff in the third game. In a critical series, the Lobos took control and passed Fresno in the standings and took the season tiebreaker over them. They are now 10-10 in conference play.

UNM won by doing what they do best: hitting. Going into Sunday, April 30 the team had a batting average of .332, the third best in the nation. The team scored 39 runs on 49 hits in the series.

Lobo Reed Spenrath talked about this being his first collegiate game at right field. He was proud his coaches trusted him to play both in the infield and outfield.

After the interview his teammates were eager to debut his new nickname “The Tarp” because he covers the whole field.

“We’re starting to figure it out, we’re getting hot right now,” Spenrath said. “It’s nice to have everybody up because they can’t pitch around you because they have to go up against the guy in front of or behind you … I’ve played a little bit of (right field) in the fall, and thankfully my coaches had a lot of trust in me to go out there and figure it out. It was a good time.”

The first game was on Friday, April 28 and the Lobos had to rally to win 16-10. The team was down 9-0 and scored 10 unanswered runs to put them back in front. Lobo Arthur Steinkamp came in as a relief pitcher and took over on defense going 4.1 innings and giving up just one hit.

On offense, four Lobos had three or more hits and Lenny Junior Ash-

performance with 4 hits on 6 at-bats.

The game was tied 10-10 going into the bottom of the eighth.

The Lobos had the bases loaded with two outs. Konner Kinkade singled to score a run and Sean Stephens earned a walk with the bases loaded to score another run.

Jeffrey David doubled to score 3 and Ashby singled for a run to end the 6-run innings. Brian McBroom pitched the previous inning for the Lobos and closed out the game to pick up the win.

UNM won the second game of the series 17-7 on Friday, April 29. The Lobos earned an early lead and held onto it the entire game.

The team has a balanced offense

hitting 7 home runs in the game. But it was Justin Olson who stole the show hitting a grand slam, a 3-run home run and a solo home run for a total of 8 RBIs.

Tristin Lively started and was the first pitcher in the conference to get to six wins in conference play. He went 5.1 innings on 105 pitches.

Going into the bottom of the fourth the Lobos were up 6-2 and had runners on second and third. Fresno intentionally walked Spenrath to load the bases with one out.

Kyle Smith battled for a walk which scored a run for the Lobos. Olson launched his second home run of the day for a grand slam. Devon Dixon reached second on a fielder’s choice and Chase Weissenborn

singled to score a run. Lobos were up 12-2.

The Bulldogs did chip into the Lobos lead but Jaren Jackson pitched the last three innings of the game and earned a save. The Lobos won 17-7.

The Lobos earned a 6-5 walk-off win in the final game of the series on Sunday, April 30. The Lobos gave up their lead in the ninth inning but were able to rally back. Smith had an incredible 10th inning, getting the final two outs and singling with two runners on base to score the winning run.

Isaac Gallegos pitched seven innings, gave up just five hits and 2 earned runs on 113 pitches. Brian McBroom earned the win by pitch-

ing the last inning and gave up just one hit.

In the top of the ninth, Lobos were up 4-3. With the bases loaded and two outs, Nikoh Mitchell doubled for the Bulldogs to give them the lead. UNM was down 5-4 going into the bottom of the ninth.

The Lobos had runners on first and second, Kinkade doubled to tie the game. The Bulldogs intentionally walked Spenrath to load the bases with two outs and they were able to get the final outs. Game was tied 5-5 going into extra innings. With the bases loaded and one out Smith made the final two outs by chasing two foul balls to end the top of the 10th.

Deylan Pigford had a leadoff single to start the bottom of the inning and Stephens laid down a bunt and beat the throw to put runners on first and second. Smith singled to walk off Fresno 6-5.

After the series, Smith was ecstatic about the team’s performance and their position in the standings.

“It’s awesome: we needed that, we needed that so bad. So it’s nothing but pure excitement … That was a big series for us. We now have a 4-2 lead against them and we’re ready to go,” Smith said.

The Lobos play next against rival New Mexico State University on Tuesday, May 2 in Albuquerque.

Thomas Bulger is the sports editor for the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @thomasbulger10

Spirit Squad chooses lucky Lobos to cheer for University

By Addison Key @addisonkey11

Jessie Truitt, the head coach of the University of New Mexico Spirit program, has been working on tryouts to fill the dance team, the co-ed cheer team and the all-girl cheer team.

Over this past weekend, April 28 to 30, tryouts started. They included Spirit Squad veterans and rookies who made it through the video submission phase to compete to fill around 70 to 90 spots, Truitt said.

Truitt will also be looking for new people to fill the Lobo Lucy and Lobo Louie costumes on May 4 to 5 in the SUB.

“I like to say ‘on the prowl’ … to

build a mascot team. I’m hoping to expand because, like our athletes, they’re required to go to almost all of the sporting events. It’s a different beast putting on a 10-pound fur suit (and) to be in there and in that long,” Truitt said.

Friday was an open mat session designed to get attendees more comfortable with each other while Saturday and Sunday served as evaluation days. Truitt said that an important part of the evaluation is mastering the school’s fight song.

“Rookies were all sent videos of learning the fight song,” Truitt said. “They had to do it in their video submission, but then we’ll also do it in person to see if they’ve continued to practice and got better at it. Also to

Volume 127 Issue 34

see how much they line up with the vets, to see if it’s gonna be a seamless transition. We do it so many times, it’s kind of a staple of our program.”

Dance team veteran Carmen Chavez said that the tryout experience is a nerve-racking but exciting start to the season. During tryouts her freshman year, she said she was not expecting to make the team.

“It was a miracle that I was accepted. I genuinely went in there just excited to experience a college tryout. Being given the opportunity to try out for a D-I spirit program was huge for me. I remember my interview. I was like, ‘If anyone wants to do it, it’s me,’” Chavez said. “Thankfully my coaches saw potential in me, and it’s been an absolute dream.”

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Veterans of the Spirit Squad are not guaranteed spots and must go through the same tryout process as the rookies. Casey Howell, a member of the co-ed cheer team, said that she has had a long career proving herself as an important team member.

“I’m excited for this season,” Howell said. “I’ve been able to be on this team four going on five years now and I’m excited to step up and take a leadership position that I’ve been growing into for the past couple of years.”

Truitt said many of the boys on the co-ed team didn’t have much experience before the program because New Mexico’s high school cheer program is geared more toward an all-girl cheer

Editorial Staff Telephone: (505) 277-7527

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squad. Maximus Gering, on the co-ed cheer team, approached his first tryouts with a more relaxed attitude than most.

“I walked in there so nonchalant because I was not a cheerleader … but it’s the best decision I ever made. I love being part of cheer. I have made so many friends. I can do a backflip now,” Gering said.

Talisa Soto Romero transferred to UNM and said that the community the Spirit Squad provided was a large selling point for the school.

“I had the opportunity to go to other schools, and when it came down to it I was like, ‘Where did I feel most at home? Where did I feel most comfortable with not knowsee Spirit page 6

Photo Editor Mackenzie Schwartz

Culture Editor Spenser Willden

Copy Editor Zara Roy Multimedia Editor Elizabeth Secor

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Founded in 1889, the University of New Mexico sits on the traditional homelands of the Pueblo of Sandia. The original peoples of New Mexico – Pueblo, Navajo, and Apache – since time immemorial, have deep connections to the land and have made significant contributions to the broader community statewide. We honor the land itself and those who remain stewards of this land throughout the generations and also acknowledge our committed relationship to Indigenous peoples. We gratefully recognize our history. This statement was developed by Pam Agoyo, director of American Indian Student Services and special assistant to the president on American Indian Affairs, in consultation with the Native American Faculty Council.

Weston Quintana / Daily Lobo / @wesss_jpg

Lenny Junior Ashby hits and connects with a powerful swing, sending the ball soaring over the outfield fence for a home run against Fresno State at Santa Ana Star Field on Saturday, April 29. by had a great

LETTER: Cherry Reel Review and What it Means to Critique

By Aiyana Shuler

Dear Editor,

I am about to graduate in two weeks. I transferred to the UNM film department from an art school. Over the course of the last four years I have been a part of probably hundreds of critiques. For drawing, for painting, for 2D art, multi-media art, digital and electronic art, essays, creative writing pieces, nonfiction writing, poetry, profiles, the basics of film, experimental film, narrative film, screenplays; from the smallest details worked out in classes like log lines to the broadest bare bones of a story. I was taught in

my freshman year how a good critique is constructed.

A good critique is a conversation. The creator presents their work, often with a very short description or a brief artist’s statement. Their peers tell them what they see in the piece, which rhythms of words are working, what is sticking out or pulling them out of the immersion, what story they are seeing from their own experience. And the conversation begins.

The artist tells what their intention was, which interpretations of their work they enjoyed, what they would change to get a different interpretation. Their peers, knowing better the intention, tell them what is or isn’t working, if

they understand the piece better now or not.

It is very hard to have a one-sided critique. Just like it’s very hard to have a one-sided conversation.

What the Cherry Reel review felt like was a one-sided conversation where the only person talking did not care about any of the intentions being set.

Cherry Reel is a showcase of majority student work. A showcase, not a competition. Awards are given out to encourage young creators to continue creating, to show them that there is an audience who wants to see what they will do. It is a joyful celebration of everything we have done, including class projects and passion projects that we were able to fit in

between our busy schedules.

It is not a time for winning or losing, or sorting films into “disappointments” and “highlights.”

Film students know that we are going into an industry that will try to pit us against each. We know that studios will make everything feel like a competition, and that “losing” feels like your work and everything you did for it is worthless. “Losing” means becoming a starving artist or abandoning your work. Cherry Reel is not that.

Cherry Reel is the uplifting of each other, the unifying of “I see the work you put in and I appreciate it.” It is the reassurance that our art means something, even if just in our own small community.

Critiques come with the un -

derstanding of this intention. With the understanding of why these 21 outstanding films were chosen out of the over 130 films submitted to be the best showcase of what is being created in our community.

No piece of artwork is ever without flaw. We artists know this, and we always want to improve. But improvement does not come through comments made in ignorance. Improvement comes through conversation knowledgeable in intention.

Submitted by Aiyana Shuler

LETTER: Concerning your piece on Cherry Reel

By Paolo Serino

Hello,

You don’t know me; my name is Paolo Serino and I’m a film major at UNM. I’m emailing you because of your review of some of the student films in the article on Cherry Reel. Whether or not you choose to read what I have to say is up to you, but I found what you had to say about your fellow UNM student’s films highly questionable. It’s totally fine to have your opinions and to voice your criticisms, when necessary, but to publicly lambast other students’ work (some of which is their first work

to be presented in a public setting) felt very inappropriate.

To speak plainly, I found your article to be overly mean-spirited. Giving praise to the films you thought to be best — “highlights”

— is great. However, to label the student films as “disappointments” in bold letters beside the name of the creators is off-putting.

I’m not sure what the standards are at the Daily Lobo, but I don’t think it includes ridiculing other students for their creative work that they put on display in contribution to a community event like Cherry Reel. These peers of mine put a lot of effort into their short movies. Making a movie, even a couple

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minutes long with no budget, can take an immense amount of dedication, soul searching, and vulnerability. This article doesn’t just put down some of the filmmakers, it up and demeans them.

“The images are far from hallucinatory, betraying a lack of creative vision on the director’s part.” I’d really like you to keep in mind that most of the movies presented were created originally for class projects and homework, but even so, this is needlessly harsh and just mean. I really want to remain respectful as I can, since you are a newspaper publication, but statements like this toward people on such a platform is a gross misuse of student journalism.

“If it sounds immature, that’s because it is, all the way from the subject matter to the filmmaking.

The camerawork is shoddy, the lighting flat, and the script inconsistent with its own logic.” Again, whether you intended it or not, saying this about someone comes across as malicious. I’ll forgo any further direct quotes, not because there isn’t more, but because I would be talking in circles about how overtly demeaning they are.

It’s not funny to say hurtful things to up-and-coming filmmakers under the guise of critique. The feedback was not constructive, and it didn’t seem like it was trying to be. Maybe it would be helpful for professional filmmak-

ers who are looking for that kind of feedback. But to the amateur filmmakers who submitted to Cherry Reel, articles like these cause lots of issues like hurt emotions, bullying, and low self-esteem.

I hope you found what I said helpful to see the perspective of those on the receiving end of this kind of article. As a UNM student and reader, please use your platform to bring up our art community instead of putting them down. It is honestly sad and so shameful to see our own school newspaper publicly tear down these rising artists in such a humiliating way.

Submitted by Paolo Serino

knowing anyone?’” Romero said.

The 2022-23 season was Truitt’s first season as the Spirit Squad director. Truitt graduated from Bernalillo High School, cheered on the co-ed team at UNM and has served as the co-ed team coach. Truitt said that it was important for her to build community throughout the squad. The interview process during tryouts gives the coaches insight on how rookies will fit into the larger community.

“We wanna know how they speak and how they talk because we’re also huge liaisons for the University. We are out in the community so much … so we have to know when we interview them. Are they going to represent the University in a

positive manner? … And it does play into their overall score,” Truitt said.

The interview process requires members and rookies to answer questions about the University and the different sports programs to evaluate if they will be able to communicate with the community, which Romero said is beneficial for the rookies.

“I definitely felt like, as a rookie, it made me feel a little special that these coaches took their time out of the tryout to come speak to you and have that little interview,” Romero said.

Truitt believes that the tryout process is integral to maintaining the family-like atmosphere that the team has built. Part of building that family

is ensuring that they all are committed to the University and its values.

“We’ve built a family here. And so the tryout process, we really have to hone in to make sure that that family stays the same,” Truitt said. “We’re selecting people who enhance our family. We’re selecting people who are really truly Lobo fans that will give it their all.”

Addison Key is a freelance reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @addisonkey11

BONANZAEVERYMONDAY

Liliana Esparza / Daily Lobo / @DailyLobo Prospective cheerleaders show off their skills at the UNM spirit squad tryouts.

Nizhoni Days Powwow celebrates 64th year of community-making

By Mackenzie Schwartz @Mackenzid5

The Kiva Club hosted the Nizhoni Days Powwow on Sunday, April 30. It is the oldest powwow in New Mexico, according to Demetrius Johnson (Diné) a former Kiva Club president from 2015 to 2017.

“It does heal the community, and I think during COVID this Powwow was really missed,” Johnson said. “But the other purpose of this Powwow is to show that there is a powwow out there that is for the community, and it is free, and it is by Native people, for Native people.”

The entirety of the event is free, including a community dinner. It was started 64 years ago when the Kiva Club wanted to bring a pow-

wow back to New Mexico.

“The Kiva Club Powwow is the oldest powwow in New Mexico, it was started by Kiva Club and pretty much the whole community wanted to bring powwow down here to the Southwest, specifically New Mexico,” Johnson said.

Johnson was attending the Powwow with the Red Nation, a grassroots organization that is dedicated to Native liberation.

“A Native-led organization dedicated to the liberation of Native people, talking about settler colonialism, about capitalism, how it affects our people, but also how we move forward,” Johnson said.

Mackenzie Schwartz is the photo editor at the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at photoeditor@dailylobo. com or on Twitter @mackenzid5

Mackenzie Schwartz / Daily Lobo / @Mackenzid5

A man stand on the Powwow grounds in his regalia at Nizhoni Days Powwow presented by UNM Kiva Club at Johnson Field on Sunday, April 30.

Mackenzie Schwartz / Daily Lobo / @Mackenzid5

Young girl dances on Powwow grounds.

Mackenzie Schwartz / Daily Lobo / @Mackenzid5

A group of people dance on Powwow grounds.

REVIEW: ‘Beau is Afraid’ of brevity

By Zara Roy @zarazzledazzle

This review contains spoilers

Time to whip out your Ativan: auteur-at-large Ari Aster has returned for his third feature film, “Beau is Afraid.” Back at his old vices of troublesome familial dynamics and brutal weirdness, Aster now formats them into a hero’s journey with a darkly comic edge. “Beau is Afraid” is a valiant experiment diminished by its own bloated runtime and unsatisfying, loopy narrative structure.

The film follows the titular Beau Wassermann (Joaquin Phoenix), an anxious and solitary man, as he attempts to return home for the burial of his overbearing mother Mona Wassermann. Along the way, he is plunged into a variety of surreal, tooth-pulling nightmare scenarios which serve to reaffirm Beau’s various Freudian neuroses.

Though Aster makes a strong departure from his two previous horror darlings “Midsommar” and “Hereditary,” he is quick to establish an unrelenting, hellish bubble for Beau to occupy. He lives in a cartoonishly

violent neighborhood where a fiveminute walk to the corner store could lead to him being locked out of his house by a gang of vagrants and taking a bath could lead to being run over by a truck. Aster drives this film like a racecar at the top, immediately disorienting the viewer.

Unfortunately, this tempo comes to a weary lull halfway through the movie and never truly picks back up again. As Beau stumbles across a traveling troupe of performers in the woods who tell the story of his life in an albeit stunning dream sequence, you start to get the feeling that the movie is flooded with too much too-much. Eventually, even the most jarring of revelations feels par for the course.

This is only worsened by the fact that Aster feels the need to milk every last ounce of intrigue out of each absurdity he introduces. Sequences that could have been five minutes are stretched to 20, and though I hate to be the person who gripes about the length of a film, it is disappointing to see a movie with such a strong momentum roll over and die part way through due to its disinterest in brevity.

Mona, portrayed by Zoe ListerJones and Patti LuPone, serves as a

dense cloud of psychological burden over the film, waiting at any moment to pour down on Beau. His father, according to Mona, was one of many in his paternal line to have died immediately after having sex for the first time, leading Beau to live his entire life as a virgin.

Aster’s presentation of Mona as looming and controlling even in her death is one of the most effective bits of the story. Of course, he had to spoil it by revealing that Mona was in fact alive and faked her death to test Beau, only to proceed with beating the audience over the head with overbearing mean-mommy dialogue, just in case you were wondering how Aster feels about his mother after 2-and-a-half hours of Oedipal musings.

Even the most tedious parts of the screenplay, however, are given life by stellar performances across the board, each of which cradle the delicate logic of the world with great care. Phoenix’s performance is especially impressive (to little surprise) as he takes on the task of finding the internal logic of a character who lives in a world that abides by no logic at all.

The visuals also help to resuscitate the film in its slow moments — though the story does not flow consistently, the visual language

moves smoothly from scene to scene, conjuring a lush journey and adding new layers just when you thought the world could not get any larger. It is brutal, big and not beholden to form: all of the most promising parts of the film living up to their best.

I truly want to remember this film for only its best parts — when they shined, they really shined. Unfortunately, the jarring disparities between the best and worst of the film left me feeling fatally indifferent to something that was obviously

meant to conjure up the sharpest and most stirring of emotions. Though it’s worth a watch if not merely for its tonal shift from Aster’s prior movies, I didn’t not walk out of it with the vehement love nor hatred that the film has seemed to polarize audiences with. “Beau” is — just okay.

Zara Roy is the copy chief at the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at copychief@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @zarazzledazzle

Courtesy Photo / Daily Lobo / @DailyLobo

Joaquin Phoenix plays Beau Wassermann in “Beau is Afraid.” Photo courtesy of IMDb.

The Entertainment Guide

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UNM faculty, staff bring attention to lack of capacity in Legislature

By Maddie Pukite @maddogpukite

The New Mexico State Legislature is currently the only U.S. state legislature to not pay its representatives. It has one of the shortest session lengths and smallest staffs. To modernize the Legislature could mean increasing all of the above, according to a Bureau of Business and Economic Research study.

Last fall, Rose Elizabeth Rohrer, a researcher with BBER at UNM, interviewed 24 of the 112 state representatives and received surveys from 44.4% of the staff to hear their thoughts on the status of the Legislature.

Of the responses, many said they would benefit from at least one halftime, individually assigned staffer, and at most two full-time staffers. 82.9% said they should be paid, and that the current per diem and travel compensation does not cover the costs of the job. 80.7% said that there was not enough time in the session to dedicate the amount of time to legislation that it deserves.

While Rohrer said it was evident during the interviews that representatives from both parties want conversations about modernization, many do not feel there is the time available with the current session length.

“They felt that there’s no time to have these conversations and that everything feels so compressed and rushed and difficult that having the tougher conversations sometimes goes by the wayside,” Rohrer said.

Two political science professors at UNM, Michael Rocca and Timothy Krebs, have also studied what modernization would look like via the Thornburg Foundation.

A constitutional amendment would be needed to obtain an increased salary and extended session. The amendment would need to first go through both houses, be signed by the governor and then passed as a referendum by the people on a ballot. Increases in staffing could be accomplished with a line item on the budget, Rocca said.

For many legislators in New Mexico there comes a point, especially for those who are parents, where they can’t afford to serve anymore due to financial reasons, Rocca said.

“In my interviews with legisla-

tors, there is a lot of concern about holding a job and or holding a full time job and being able to be a legislator and have family and have time for themselves and those kinds of things,” Rohrer said.

Increased capacity, in staffing and session length, could influence the quality of policy that is produced, Rocca said.

“There’s no doubt that the greater the capacity for a legislature, the more likely they’re going to create policies that are probably not only more innovative but are a better match for the unique challenges that that particular state has,” Rocca said.

In situations where policy is blocked by the legislator, modernization could provide more options to create different poli -

cies, Krebs said.

“If there’s something coming out of the executive branch that the legislature simply does not want. They can a block (it) by not acting on it, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to have the ability, the capacity to produce an alternative,” Krebs said.

Currently, with the limited capacity of the state legislator, it by nature gives more power to the executive branch and special interest groups, as they operate year-round to do their work, unlike the Legislature, Rocca said.

“They do not have the time and they do not have the resources to push back against lobbying, or they cannot possibly compete with the expertise that our bureaucracy holds. And remember a bureaucra-

cy (is what our) legislature is supposed to regulate,” Rocca said.

Increasing staff could allow representatives to have more support to stay in better contact with their constituents, while working on policy, Krebs said.

The implementation of compensation for representatives could also help reduce conflicts of interest between their day jobs and their representative duties

“You have members of our community who are running banks, who then are on committees during the 60-day session that are meant to regulate banks in the state of New Mexico. That’s a serious problem,” Rocca said.

The policy that is produced by the Legislature has a sustainable impact on UNM, as it receives lots of federal funding, specifically considering the Opportunity Scholarship, Rocca said.

“A more modern legislature, a more professionalized legislature could, in many ways, help UNM students get represented, fairly and adequately dealing with the sorts of policies that literally affect their pocketbook and not to mention what they’ll be doing after they graduate,” Rocca said.

Maddie Pukite is the Editor-inCheif at the Daily Lobo. They can be contacted at editorincheif@dailylobo. comor on Twitter @maddogpukite

Maddie Pukite / Daily Lobo / @maddogpukite

Entrance to the New Mexico Roundhouse on Feb. 10, 2023.

by Christopher Tran

T he DAILY LOBO is hiring students NOW!

Freelance Reporter

Duties and Responsibilities: Responsible for writing stories as assigned by Daily Lobo desk editors (news, culture, sports).

Required Knowledge, Skill and/or Abilities: Communication skills.

Preferred Knowledge, Skill and/or Abilities: Writing and reporting skills.

Freelance Photographer

Duties and Responsibilities: Take photographs to illustrate stories in the Daily Lobo

Required Knowledge, Skill and/or Abilities: Knowledge of digital photography. Communication skills.

Preferred Knowledge, Skill and/or Abilities: Knowledge of Adobe PhotoShop.

Editorial Design

Duties and Responsibilities: Design pages for the editorial sections of the Daily Lobo Work with all desk editors and Editor-in-Chief to design pages for each section of the newspaper. Work under deadline to ensure that page design is properly implemented into final page(s) template. Prepare and send files to printer.

Required Knowledge, Skill and/or Abilities: Knowledge of Adobe InDesign and Adobe PhotoShop.

Preferred Knowledge, Skill and/or Abilities: Graphic design skills.

Advertising Intern

Duties and Responsibilities: Sell display advertising for the Daily Lobo newspaper. Establish relationships with clients, contact and maintain accounts, and serve as a general marketing specialist for a variety of businesses. Communicate professionally with clients over the phone, e-mail, and in person. Seek out new clients to advertise with the Daily Lobo. Create advertising proposals for current and prospective clients. Working with clients, design thumbnails of ads to be created by advertising production staff. Schedule ads in accounting software. Handle payment transactions, including entering transactions in acccounting software and submitting cash and checks to the accounting office. Input client information and contacts into accounting software. Proof ads on a daily basis.

Required Knowledge, Skill and/or Abilities: Good customer service skills. Experience in sales. Must exhibit strong organizational and communication skills, both oral and written.

Preferred Knowledge, Skill and/or Abilities: Proficiency in Word and Excel. Experience in a deadline situation.

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PAPER DUE? FORMER UNM instructor, Ph.D., English, published, can help. 505-569-2626 (Text Only); 505254-9615 (Voice Only).

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